The late revolution of government in Sweden, though arising from the same principles, took a very different turn. Charles the twelfth, brave even to enthusiasm, and as insatiably fond of glory as the ambitious Alexander, had quite tired out and exhausted his people, by his destructive expeditions. But when that fortunate shot from the town of Frederickshal gave repose to his own country as well as to a great part of Europe, the states of Sweden, no longer awed by a warlike monarch (who had usurped a despotick power) and a veteran army, again resumed the exercise of their own inherent powers. Stimulated by a desire of vengeance for the evils they had already suffered, and the fear of smarting again under the same evils, they beheaded Gortz, the minister of their late monarch’s oppressions, and left the crown no more than the bare shadow of authority. For though they continued the monarchy for life and hereditary, yet they imposed such rigid terms upon their succeeding kings, as reduced them to a state of dependance and impotence nearly equal to a doge of Genoa or Venice. We see, in both these instances, the revolution in government effected by the union of two powers of the government against the third. The catastrophe indeed in both nations was different, because that third power which was obnoxious to the other two, was different in each nation. In the former of these instances, the people, fired with resentment against the nobility, and instigated by secret emissaries of the crown, blindly gave up their whole power to the king, which enabled him to deprive the nobility (the second estate) of their share of power, and bring the whole to centre in the crown. Thus the government in Denmark was changed into absolute monarchy. In the latter, the senate took the lead during the _interregnum_, which followed the death of Charles, and changed the government into aristocracy. For though the outward form of government indeed is preserved, yet the essence no longer remains. The monarchy is merely titular, but the whole power is absorbed by the senate, consequently the government is strictly aristocratick. For the people were by no means gainers by the change, but remain in the same state of servitude, which they so much complained of before. Thus in all revolutions in mixed governments, where the union of two injured powers is animated by the spirit of patriotism, and directed by that salutary rule before laid down, which forbids us to destroy, and only enjoins us to reduce the third offending power within its proper bounds, the balance of government will be restored upon its first principles, and the change will be for the better. Thus when the arbitrary and insupportable encroachments of the crown under James the second, aimed so visibly at the subversion of our constitution, and the introduction of absolute monarchy; necessity authorized the lords and commons (the other two powers) to have _recourse_ to the joint exercise of that